Drosera anglica

Drosera anglica, commonly known as the English sundew or great sundew, is a carnivorous flowering plant species belonging to the sundew family Droseraceae. It is a temperate species with a circumboreal range, although it does occur as far south as Japan, southern Europe, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii, where it grows as a tropical sundew. It is thought to originate from an amphidiploid hybrid of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis, meaning that a sterile hybrid between these two species doubled its chromosomes to produce fertile progeny which stabilized into the current D. anglica.

Morphology

Drosera anglica is a perennial herb which forms an upright, stemless rosette of generally linear-spatulate leaves. As is typical for sundews, the laminae are densely covered with stalked reddish colored mucilaginous glands, each tipped with a clear droplet of a viscous fluid used for trapping insects. The lamina, which is 15–35 millimetres (0.59–1.38 in) long, is held semi-erect by a long petiole, bringing the total leaf size to 30–95 millimetres (1.2–3.7 in). Plants are green, coloring red in bright light. In all populations except those in Kauaʻi, D. anglica forms winter resting buds called hibernacula. These consist of a knot of tightly curled leaves at ground level, which unfurl in spring at the end of the dormancy period. The root system is weak and penetrates only a few centimeters, serving mainly as an anchor and for water absorption. Nitrogen is in short supply in bogs and trapping and digesting insects provides an alternate source.

Drosera anglica flowers in the summer, sending up peduncles 6–18 centimetres (2.4–7.1 in). long bearing several white flowers which open individually. Like other sundews, the flowers have five sepals, petals, and stamens with three styles. The petals for this species are 8–12 mm (¼ to ½") long, and the flowers have branched 2-lobed styles. The odorless, nectar-less flowers do not rely on insect pollinators for pollination, rather setting seed well through self-pollination (autogamy). The black roundish spindle-shaped seeds, are 1 to 1+1⁄2 mm long. The fruits are a dehiscent three-valved capsule.